When Cyrus came rolling to his feet, Rayan’s sword had been pressed to his own throat. He had been ready to give his life, for the goddess he loved was dead, and the royal family he’d sworn to protect had come to a bloody end. For Cyrus to survive? To escape the clutches of the empire, and through Rayan’s aid? It had to have meant something. He had clung to that fact to keep fighting, even as the last of his order dwindled, the few survivors casting aside their armor or dying in the ensuing purges across Thanet.

“Your words cannot bring me despair,” Rayan said as he braced his legs and readied his shield. “I have known the lowest of depths, and I have emerged stronger. You are a blight upon our island, paragon. It is only a matter of time before we burn you away.”

“Stronger?” asked the paragon. “Show me.”

He swung his ax directly into the shield. The impact tore a scream from Rayan’s lips. He staggered backward, pain flashing up and down his arm in waves. His balance faltered. He tripped, not realizing over what, until he collapsed down to one knee.

The body of a man lay before him, mouth open in a frozen scream. Blood pooled beneath him from a vicious wound across his abdomen. In Rayan’s peripheral vision, he saw the approach of the paragon’s enormous boots. Each step echoed in his mind, as if the weight of the paragon’s armor shook the world with a quake only he might hear. The ax whistled through the air as he twirled it overhead. His eager laugh stung like vipers.

Alone, the paragon had mocked. All alone.

Rayan used his shield hand to close the dead man’s eyes, then pushed back to a stand. The paragon clutched the shaft of his ax and raised it high. A smile blossomed upon his lips. He knew Rayan would not flee. He knew the fight had reached its end.

“Not alone,” Rayan whispered as he braced his shield for a blow that would surely break him. “Are you with me, Lycaena? Do you watch, even in death?”

One last step to close the distance. The paragon’s boot crunched down upon the rib cage of the slain man.

“Are we still loved?”

The boot should have broken bones. It should have spilled gore across the street and left a stain upon the plate. Instead the body dissolved, every drop of blood and water, every bone, every sinew. A thousand moths erupted into flight, a swirling gray whirlwind that encased the stunned paragon. They slammed their powdery bodies into his eyes. They flowed into his mouth by the dozens, choking his throat as he gagged. Amid the flutter, Rayan heard his name whispered, sung in a song that reached only his ears.